The basic model for completing a telephone call is changing. Rather that rely completely on end to end circuit switched connections, more and more phone calls are completed using, at least in part, packet switching techniques. More systems and equipment are being developed that are dedicated to transmission of voice communication on the Internet. As more of these systems and equipment become available, the complexity of the communications matrix increases.
In IP telephony systems it is known to conduct a telephone call utilizing a combination of public switched telephone network (PSTN) links, and packet telephony links. An example of such a system is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 6,404,864 (“the '864 patent”) owned by the assignee of the present invention. In such prior systems, an “originating gateway” takes the call from the PSTN to the Internet, and a “terminating gateway” places the call back onto the PSTN at a remote location after removing it from the Internet. Thus, a long distance call may have three “legs”, a first PSTN leg from the calling telephone to the originating gateway, a second leg from the originating gateway to a terminating gateway, and a third leg from a terminating gateway to a called telephone. The '864 patent is directed to a system that helps the originating gateway pick which of several terminating gateways that are located in the remote location should be selected to complete the call from the Internet, over a PSTN link, to a destination terminal. The '864 patent is incorporated herein in its entirety by reference.
There are costs associated with the origination and termination of a call. Typically, a carrier of an internet call is a buyer of telecommunication services on one end where it pays a termination fee to a carrier in order for calls routed to that terminating gateway to be terminated in the PSTN associated with that gateway. On the other end a carrier of an internet call is a seller of telecommunication services where it charges a fee to a carrier wishing to route calls through an originating gateway onto the internet. It is therefore essential to the success of a carrier to pay the correct amount to transport traffic on competing networks and to charge the correct amount when transporting traffic, otherwise large margin losses will occur. Therefore knowledge of proper rates is essential.
By way of definition, phone numbers define a specific telephone set. Each number begins with a country code, which is then followed by increasingly specific digits that eventually uniquely identify the specific physical line any call must be directed to. A “code” is any collection of phone numbers that can be summarized at a higher level by simply listing the digits those phone numbers have in common. For example, phone numbers in China begin with country code 86. “86” would be the highest level code for China. “864” would be a more specific “code” within China. So, codes can exist at multiple levels.
Currently, when carriers buy or sell to each other, they exchange rates and code information via fax and/or email. A common practice in the industry is to group codes together, where appropriate, and apply the same price. A common industry name for these code groupings is “Pricing Breakouts.”
Typically the rates are given in a format upon which the issuer of the rates (Carrier A) has standardized, which format generally is not compatible with the format the receiver of the rates (Carrier B) has standardized and natively supports. As such, the rates of the issuing carrier (Carrier A) must be imported or typed into the systems of Carrier B. The point of entry may be the system that actually routes calls to suppliers (e.g. switch) or a system that is upstream from the switch (e.g. a billing system or rate entry system). In the case of faxes, the process of typing in rates in inherently slow and error prone. Receiving rates via email and spreadsheet is much less error prone, but usually requires manual or automated manipulation of the data to make it compatible with the systems of Carrier B.
Another method of rate exchange is via web interface. Specifically, some buyers require the seller to input rates via the buyer's web interface. Arbinet is one company that employs such a technique. In this case, the seller must take their rates and type them into a web page, thus the onus is on the seller to manipulate or type the data.
When Carrier A and Carrier B use different code groupings for Pricing Breakouts with the same name, the process becomes much more complicated. It is not a simple matter of comparing apples to apples and entering a new rate. Carrier B must compare its code definitions to Carrier A's definitions, and reconcile the two to match. This process is typically performed manually or by an automated process. This extra work that Carrier B must undertake to resolve the codes is time consuming and often slows down or stops Carrier A from being a supplier in the “Considered set” for Carrier B. This process is error prone and is often a source of “code disputes” between buyer and seller.
Efforts have been made to standardize the carrier community on code definitions. About 95% of destinations have standardized codes across most carriers and do not have code mismatches, but the capability is needed for certain destinations like Mexico, Philippines, Brazil, Russia, Peru and Western European Mobile, where a standard definition has not materialized. The International Telecommunications Union (ITU) publishes a periodic updated list of country and regional codes. Arbinet markets a product entitled AXCESSCODESM that purports to provide carriers with a periodically updated database of over 10,000 valid calling codes and a unique market identifier for every destination in the world. These lists of standardized codes have been adopted to a limited extent but by no means is such adoption widespread.
Moreover, each carrier generally has its own definition of codes due to the granularity they wish to use in the buying and routing process. For example, some carriers do not want to spend the time and effort to route/buy with specific granularity to destinations within the United States so they route to the broad specificity of “+1.” These carriers generally pay the highest rates as a result. At the other end of the spectrum other carriers wish to buy at the most competitive level possible to the US and breakout to extremely fine levels as provided by the Local Exchange Routing Guide (LERG) database. These carriers can have tens of thousand of codes that represent up to 7 digits of depth in their routing tables to the US (NPA-NXX routing).
Further complicating matters, Carrier A and B may be from different countries with different currencies, and this can cause additional barriers to doing business. One carrier or the other may have to convert currencies to be acceptable to the other. This can be manual or automatic. The method by which the currencies are converted can vary (e.g. pick a standard index and update conversion rate 1×/month).
Finally, quality parameters are also often exchanged that relate to the code makeup of pricing breakouts. Examples of such quality parameters include Answer Seizure Ratio (ASR), Call Duration and Post-Dial Delay (PDD).
Thus, there exists a need for a system and method to enable carriers to communicate rate information quickly, consistently and cost effectively thereby reducing the impedance of doing business between carriers. Such a system and method would have the potential to become the true industry standard for intercarrier rate/code/quality information exchange.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide automated software that reconciles the differences in pricing breakout definitions between buyers and sellers of communication services.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a universal translation system and method for use between telecommunication carriers buying from/selling to each other that formats rate/code/quality information with the data structure/currency and medium (fax/email) in which the other carrier is equipped to see it.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide the foregoing system and method wherein there is no manual effort associated with issuing or receiving rates to/from the other carrier, despite the fact that the carriers may use different currencies and code breakout definitions.
It is still a further object of the present invention to provide the foregoing system and method wherein rates can be sent and accepted any time and automatically put into route by the originator at a frequency no less than the minimum frequency at which the originator changes its routing.
It is yet a further object of the present invention to provide a full audit trail for all transactions between carriers.
These and other objects of the invention disclosed will become more apparent from the description of the invention to follow.